I meant to blog about this newest Walkabout Mini Golf course back when it launched to the MetaQuest store, or rather, landed safely on Mars? Unfortunately, I got caught up in Diablo IV and real life, and set it aside. But here we are now—so let’s dive into the details!
Switching on the low gravity
That’s right, last month, the new Mars Gardens course hit WMG, and the VR community was all over it, as they always are with new WMG courses—because honestly, where else can you experience the full Martian mini-golf treatment for $4? (Seriously, if anyone knows, drop me a comment!) The course is a nice blend of stunning, polygon-embracing visuals (is that a nice way of putting WMG's graphic style) and intricate, challenging design. You'll immediately fall in love with all the slopes and curves that feel like some Martian cement-crafting genius put them together.
Ye' olde loop de loop . . . but on Mars!
But what really makes this course a standout is playing it in the custom low-gravity mode. The way your ball floats and drifts on those gentle slopes like it's floating through water is pretty great. In that way, the low-gravity physics really crank the difficulty up a notch. Hmm, if my body itself could experience low gravity while I played, might I be able to play better or worse? Probably worse. (Star Trek holodeck, anyone?)
Easy shot for sure . . .
As usual, you get both the regular version of the course and a harder, nighttime variant to mix it up. I haven’t tried hard mode with low gravity yet—I, mean, I’m decent at mini-golf, but I’d probably hit my stroke limit on every hole.
By the way . . . the music on this course is outstanding. Reminds me of mellow Minecraft music. It gives the whole course a really chill vibe. I think it might be one of my favorite WMG tracks yet.
Yet another easy shot . . .
As always, this game shines when played with friends. When it launched, my VR buddies from the Ruff Talk VR Discord group hopped on, and we had a blast. The course was pure fun, even though my headset ran out of power near the end (cue me scrambling to charge it while still trying to secure that sweet victory).
Oh yeah! Five under par, baby!
Hey dating crowd, I'VE GOT YOUR SCI-FI DATE PLANNED! Strap on a headset and pair a back-to-back WMG Mars Gardens and Tethys Station golf session with a classic Mars-related movie. Right? Play a few rounds, then watch The Martian, Total Recall, Mars Attacks, or maybe Red Planet. Bonus points if you hand your date a Mars Bar halfway through the movie (can you still get those?). BAM—perfect date night!
Trust me, your date will love it!
If VR isn’t your thing or you get motion sickness (or you're just an Apple user), did you know you can now play these courses on your iPhone? It’s true! I mean, I wouldn’t, because… Apple (shudders), but if you have an iPhone, dive in! It’s a great game.
I could live here. It'd be lonely in my mini-golf paradise though.
And, of course, I’m a bit late to the party (again), but you can bet I’m looking forward to the newest course that drops TOMORROW: The 8-Bit Lair! Maybe this time, I’ll get my reactions out sooner… or, you know, stick with my tradition of being $4 short and a month late.
So, first off, I've completed the story campaign of the Vessel of Hatred expansion in Diablo 4, and I’ve moved on to the endgame grind. What’s weird is that I didn’t even realize I’d finished the story until a couple of sessions later. And that left me feeling... odd.
The feeling is mutual, sir.
Apparently, I'm not alone in this. Others seem to share that anticlimactic feeling like I did. I read Belghast’s post the other day, and he was far more animated about it than I am. For me, the story just didn’t feel like enough. I expected to face Mephisto himself, not just his shard. But looking at it now, I figure we’re being set up for something bigger—maybe a future release or seasonal goal where we get the full Mephisto battle.
*sings* Here's . . . where . . . the story ends
What really stood out more than the story was the pacing of progression in the new expansion. I was leveling up like crazy—two or three times after finishing some quests. It felt great, but the cynic in me wonders if maybe the story got trimmed down somewhere, leaving us with a more straight-to-the-point narrative.
After finishing the story, Ormus from the Nahantu Council sent me into the grind—endgame dungeons and events to gain the trust of his people. Looking back, I thought I was gearing up for one final, epic battle that would test my build before earning my way into the higher Torment levels. But nope, it was more like, “Hey, congrats, you’re done!” No big test. No final boss fight. Meh.
Ormus likes to talk in third person
But on the upside, I stumbled into a pretty fun S-tier Spiritborn build. I’m running the Infinite Eagle Evade build, and it’s wild. You grab a unique staff (Sepazontec), and suddenly, every time you evade, you’re shooting out thunder-spikes and storm eagle feathers. And you can spam this indefinitely. So basically, I’m just endlessly cartwheeling around enemies, turning everything into a feather-filled storm of pain. It’s ridiculous and fun in the best of broken ways.
I do cartwheels, everyone dies . . .
Now that I’m past the story and into the grind, I’m not sure how long I’ll stick with this character. But for now, I’ll keep cartwheeling my way through Sanctuary. Maybe something exciting will shake things up.
Well, I can officially say I played Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred on opening day! My buddy, Dylan, and I made it to level 22 before he had to get his son from work and I had to get my son from Band Practice. Plus, to be honest, I was getting pretty sleepy at the end there.
Lafonda and Stingite . . . ready for Spiritborn awesomeness
We both decided to play the new class and go as bit purist with them. I'm playing a full poison-based Spiritborn and he went full fire-based Spiritborn. I don't know if we'll keep going that direction, but it's been pretty good so far for us. As it should be. We're only playing normal difficulty and just taking it easy and enjoying the story.
Poisoning everything around me
So far my favorite moments are those involving my giant poison centipede jumping out of the ground and spitting on everything. It's an epic-looking moment where minor enemies are executed on the spot, which feels super powerful . . . at least for now. Best of all, one of the abilities I use is named Stinger, which goes perfectly with my Stingite handle.
Speaking of this incarnation of "Stingite," I'm like half supermodel, half Aztecan warrior, and I'm here for the love affair.
So hawt
My only disappointment so far is that Dylan and I haven't established a role-playing accent to go along with our characters! The pure genius of our southern gentlemen, Montgomery and Leufroy, will probably never be topped.
I hope to talk a bit more about our adventures as we have them! So far, it's a thumbs up from me.
TLDR: My Blaugust wish has finally come true! As of this post, I've sold my house and bought a new one. WHEW. I can't tell you what a huge weight off of my shoulders it is to have this finished and over with. Seriously, what a crazy year it has been for me and my family!
If you're interested, sit back and let me just breakdown the timeline for you
~~
January 2024:
WIMO shuts down and all employees (including me) lose our jobs. They give us one month of severance pay. For the first time in 26 years, I had to start interviewing for jobs . . all the rules for resumes and interviews had changed. I began to lose weight and went through a pretty hard time resolving it all in my mind -- I did nothing wrong, it wasn't my fault, and I didn't know the future would hold this struggle.
I don't know if it was the stress or just bad timing, but I also ended up in the hospital from a kidney stone that resulted in an equally painful ER bill to pay.
Rocky sent me to the ER
~~
February 2024:
In a flurry of activity, I do everything I can to cut our expenses and get paperwork started so we can collect that $1000 a month in unemployment. Our family steps up, and a couple of personal angels step in with gifts of money for us so we can keep our family of five (and 2 cats) going.
I'm also attending a special class in the morning where we network for jobs, practice a 30-second introduction, and work on our resumes and cover letters. It's a free church-based opportunity, but actually it's really helpful and sets a good tone for my days.
I'm praying more than I've ever prayed and people are being very kind -- there are so many people I have already thanked in person for their kindness. I'm super humbled. My church is picking up the tab for our groceries. I'm in full survival mode.
gotta look the part with a fresh cut
~~
March 2024:
I've been submitting resumes like crazy with no response on anything. I apply for a Coursera scholarship through Rising Tides Ministry and start investigating Project Management. Lo and behold, a Project Management position becomes available at my old company back in Utah. I apply and get the job.
My father-in-law buys me a used car so I can drive to Utah and use it to get back and forth to work. I'm once again humbled and grateful to have such amazing family support.
My oldest gets married, and we plan an affordable but sweet wedding at our house.
the happy couple!
~~
April 2024:
My sister clears a pathway in my mom's house so I can stay there in Brigham City. I had always thought I could somehow stay there and work remote a couple weeks during the year, maybe I can clean the place up! I arrive in Utah by myself, get internet installed at my mom's, and I start work at my new job.
In Texas, we get our house on the market and . . . nothing . . . it's not selling and we're not even getting walkthroughs. We discover that it's a really bad time to sell a house in Pflugerville with an inundated market that has a 5+ month backlog of houses to sell.
Later in the month my good friend and real estate agent, Chrissy, walks through my mom's house in Utah. I've managed to make a small dent on cleaning and dejunking, but it's still bad in there and super overwhelming. She tells me that the mold in the house is dangerous and that I shouldn't be living there. She offers to let me move into her basement. I accept. Again, another miracle
Here's to driving 1000 miles away from my family!
~~
May 2024:
By some other miracle, my mom had never sold her house, even though she had been in a retirement community for 11 years. She had been dutifully paying someone to maintain her gardens and lawn, and my sister had been dealing with everything from leaks to other troubles that come from abandoning a house. It was full of junk that my mom didn't want anymore, save for a few precious things.
With Chrissy's help, we get an estimate for repairs on the house and my mom agrees to them. Meanwhile we start going through the house after hours and over the weekends trying to salvage those few precious things my mom wants.
The fixit crew comes in and cleans out all the junk and does a great bang-for-your buck renovation to her house.
We keep lowering the price on our house in Texas, but no luck
I started going to therapy during this month because it all had become a little too much for me to handle. I hadn't really had a solid night's sleep since January because of all the stress and being alone and separated from my family. I needed to get it all out. Of all the things my therapist helped me with, the most valuable was probably just the assurance that I was doing everything right for me and my family. I was doing my best given the situation.
A salvaged memory for myself lol
~~
June 2024:
School ends for my family and we pack up all our stuff and move the entire family out of the Texas house and to my mom's newly dejunked and renovated home . . . the same one I grew up in back in Brigham City.
My oldest heads to England to spend a month with their wife.
Back in Good ol' Brigham City
~~
July 2024:
My house just isn't selling in Texas. By this time we decide the best move is to take out a $20k loan and fix up the carpets, light fixtures, paint, and other small things around the house in Texas. We secure the loan and do just that.
Everything else is just working . . . we're staying in my mom's house in Brigham and making it work. All she's charging us is the cost of utilities to stay there. The commute to work is a killer though.
My oldest gets accepted to WSU and gets a job at Petco. Thankful for small victories!
Exploring the Brigham Mountains
~~
August 2024:
Even after renovations to our house in Texas, we just aren't getting anyone into our house to look at it so we do a big drop in price.
My wife gets a job teaching Head Start and we start getting that second source of income going, which is nice and needed, especially since I took a sizeable cut in pay.
We finally secure a contingency contract on a house, and between the contingency contract and my wife working in the right school district, it's enough to get my youngest playing in the high school marching band, which is exactly where we want him. Another miracle
Go Mellophone players!
~~
September 2024:
About halfway through the month, we get a surprise offer on our house . . . it's a cash offer that's a lowball below our already dropped price point along with asking us to pay off the $30k solar panels on the house. After six months of suffering, we take the deal. It's not great, but still doable, and so we make it happen.
Meanwhile we start to work out all the details on our house in Utah, and it turns out to be a match made in heaven. We sign on the house.
By the end of the month, I've sold our house in Texas and bought a home in Utah . . . the pains of it all have finally ended and now, it's time to move in.
Time to take the key to my new place!
~~
October 2024:
Here we are. I finally have a moment yesterday where I sit back in my office in my new home, that to be honest I'm unsure I'm going to be able to afford, and I have a zen moment where I feel "at home."
I don't know if the five people that read to the end of my long post here believe in miracles and blessings, destiny, or whatever, but I feel like I've been through the fire and came out on the other end a bit more humbled, a bit more empathetic, and definitely a lot more grateful to have so much support.
In the end, my story is just one from an epic list of stories of the effects from layoffs and studio closures that happened this year. Sadly, I have friends from WIMO that are still looking for jobs. It's been a rough year, and I've done what I can to make it all work. I couldn't have done it without all the support . . . or rather, I could have done it, but it would have been a lot worse on me and my family, financially and emotionally than it was.
All that's left is to get my middle son a job and build up some money so he can get back in college.
thanks for reading, and now in the words of New Order's song Regret, which turned into my theme song the past month:
I would like a place I could call my own Have a conversation on the telephone Wake up every day that would be a start I would not complain of my wounded heart
I was upset you see Almost all the time You used to be a stranger Now you are mine
This past week my mind started returning to the game that changed my life, Wizard101. Oh, man! I haven't logged on to Wizard101 for a long time . . . in fact the last time I played it was back in January. I'm going to be completely honest about some of the motivations last time for logging on: I was trying to get a job back at KingsIsle as a part of the Design team. It would have solved so many problems for me at the time. I wouldn't have had to move. I could have stayed in the industry. I could have been working with old friends. I could have been working on a game that I love! Unfortunately, I just wasn't what they were looking for in that particular role and thus . . . it wasn't meant to be.
Anyway, I logged on X and shot out a very simple message to see what I'd get for a response. "Tell me about what Wizard101 is like now here in 2024. I want to know your thoughts on reaching endgame. Also, how many hours a day are you playing and what are you mostly doing?" The response I got back was surprisingly awesome. I had no idea I still had reach like this with the fanbase. It got 10,000+ views and garnered a ton of responses.
While you can go read through that yourself, I thought I'd take a second to summarize what I got back:
Side Activities -- The endgame can be found in events and side activities, specifically Beastmoon, PvP, leveling pets, gardening, fishing, monstrology, and hunting for badges. There's tons of side activities now that I think about it.
The gear grind endgame remains -- You will spend a lot of time farming bosses to equip your character. It's just kind of what everyone does . . . or you buy hoard packs and skip all that nonsense.
Just being with people -- Helping friends quest and grouping up with randoms through the team-up kiosk continues to be popular at endgame.
Guilds -- Completing your Guild museum and participating in Guild Raids will give you hours of fun (and the guild raids are apparently extremely difficult and unforgiving)
Outside of these, I got a few outlying comments
The good -- As to be expected -- there are just people that continue happily playing the game no matter what they're doing, leveling a fifth character . . . hanging out . . . whatever. They're just happy to be playing.
The bad -- As to be expected -- some people are burnt out and unhappy with a variety of things. The direction of PvP, the pay-to-win monetization, the decrease in production value, being stuck in difficult content, etc. Those are all valid. I respect those honest responses. *hugs the downtrodden* I hope stuff gets better!
The pirate -- God bless 'em. I'm a Pirate101 fan too. The upcoming update can't come fast enough.
It made me log back into Wizard101, and I found myself exploring the side world that is the sewers under Wizard City, and unfortunately, where I left off was at a particularly difficult fight and one that was impossible to solo.
Not the best screenshot, but there's the Greggors . . . old and young.
This Sir Greggor fight took way too long to win, but after a couple attempts and not having friends to turn to, I realized that using blades and renting some crown shop companions were going to be my key to winning this. I realized that what makes this game really difficult is not its difficulty, but rather its time commitment because of its turn-based nature. Thankfully not all fights are as time-consuming as the Sir Greggor fight. (I'm bracing for someone to tell me . . . just wait until you fight X random boss)
Thankfully the writers of the story were pretty great about summing up why the heck I'm fighting old Dragonspyre ghosts in the sewers of Wizard City. As it turns out the sewers of Wizard City are actually old tombs and there are some Dragonspyre ghosts here thanks to a time when a power-hungry prince from Dragonspyre tried to wage war on Wizard City. Got it.
Looks like I'm back to playing some Wizard101 and hunting down old ghosts . . . sounds surprisingly apropos.
So it's been a hot minute since I had my super fascination with Asgard's Wrath 2. I was so in love with that game, and the Quest 3 I was playing it on. Just a great game and experience all around. Unfortunately, I had to give that Quest 3 back to Meta when WIMO folded because it was an engineering model and had to be returned (kicks dirt).
I love that some of my final moments in the game industry were spent playing that game. I finished it up just in time. I would have been incredibly distraught if I hadn't finished it before having to surrender the headset.
THAT SAID, Asgard's Wrath I and II came bundled with the Quest 3, and both of those games landed safely in my library regardless of the headset loss. I still have the Quest 2, and I had never even touched the original Asgard's Wrath, so I loaded it up and gave it a go! What a treat!
let's load this thing up!
In hindsight, I suppose I should have played the original first before playing the sequel, but it was new with a shiny 10/10 rating! Had I played it first, I would have realized so many features in AW2 are straight from the first game. (Now I'm wondering if I sounded dumb to people who already knew about the original? Ahh well. I sound dumb most of the time anyway, so no biggie.)
Act 1 -- Sea Serpent!
The game starts out with an epic battle against a Kraken to teach you the basics. Starting out with a boss fight like that is perfect. You are the unknown god and Loki is there to teach you how to realize your potential as a god of animals because you can take regular animals and turn them into furries . . . erm, Animorphs!
Egil the Sharkman for the win!
Whereas AW2 had 5 Animorphs, it looks like there may be upwards of 10, which is crazy. The first two you get are a shark and a turtle, which help you work your way through the first two dungeons. The shark gnaws on zombies in cages to raise platforms. The turtle uses its shell to block flame traps. I think AW2 perfected this. Each Animorph in AW2 had two or three different functions. It made them feel more impactful.
Hero in a half-shell! TURTLE POWER!
Of important note, giving a high five to your Animorph was not a new thing in AW2, and it's still awesome to do in AW1. *smacks a five with shark boy*
God puzzles are a thing, just like they were in AW2. Since I've only started, I haven't encountered any super complex puzzles yet. The first one was discovering your power as a god and the second one was constructing a simple totem and placing your shark companion on a platform . . . pretty basic. I'm hoping this gets just as fun and complex as it did in AW2.
Running into my now third God Puzzle.
Combat seems more about timing your strikes, which is good. It makes it so you can't just waggle your sword at something and have it die, unless it's a zombie . . . those are just intro enemy fodder. I'm playing the game on what I believe to be normal difficulty, and it's been a challenge in several moments, which I'm gladly taking in stride.
Crossing the Bifröst
So far it's every bit as beautiful a game as AW2 . . . I just wish I had the quest 3 headset to fully enjoy the graphics. That said, it's still pretty immersive, and I'm happily playing a new game that will be sure to hold my interest for a month or two.
Blaugust is officially over and I made my goal . . . I managed to post every day of the month, earning the Rainbow Diamond Award! That feels pretty great, and while it was tough, it also made me realize how if I really push, I could keep going and make a lot more posts here than I have been in the past 12 years or so. Maybe . . .
So let's take a look back at what I was thinking about this month.
Unfortunately, my secret Blaugust wish I put out to the Universe on August 1st didn't come true. Our house in Texas still hasn't sold. It's just a really hard time to sell a house.
Next, as predicted, I had a lot of fun in 7 Days to Die last month and made three posts in total about the good times that Dylan, his sons, and I had.
A shocking bathroom discovery!
Baulder's Gate 3 also provided a lot of post-fodder as predicted! Thanks to a lot of fun trying to remake an Everquest Beastlord in BG3, I was able to rack up around five posts.
and um yeah . . . that just happened . . .
Brawl Stars got three posts and Squad Busters got two. This all makes sense since sitting down at the computer to play was a bit difficult this month, but hanging out on my phone was super easy.
Only four posts this month were about VR games, which is surprising. I thought I'd post more about VR games, but it just didn't happen.
The real surprise of the month was how much talking about real life got. Nine posts were chatting up things going on in my real life. I guess it's a good thing that real life was so prominent this month -- it typically means I'm out having a lot of fun with my family (or I'm just too busy to game).
I find it interesting how much I still think about working in the Games industry. I would love to keep it going somehow even though I've checked out. This month had me thinking about my Dragon Jousting game pitch and the characters I made for Battle Bows. Maybe someday this blog will start to focus on me creating something new as a part-time indie dev. That'd be amazing!
I don't know what the future holds, but I'm keeping my house-selling wish alive! It's no longer a secret Blaugust wish, it's now an out-in-the-open-all-the-time wish. It certainly would let me and my family move on from feeling like we're in limbo. I honestly can't believe it hasn't sold yet. Kind of a weird burden that I wish wouldn't be a burden anymore.
Anyway . . . so . . . readers . . . while I have your ear, any requests for future content here on The Friendly Necromancer? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for reading!
I was talking to my friend over at Starstruck Games on Twittter a couple days ago, and they mentioned reading my blog post about Dragonride VR and how that reminded them of an old computer game called DragonStrike. I hadn't heard of it before, so I did a few searches, and lo and behold there it was on Steam for 3 bucks. DONE!
Guys, I'm playing the first-ever dragon combat simulator!
After playing it I was instantly transported back to the days in the early early 90's when I would play a turn-based D&D game on my old Commodore 64. (I can't even remember what the game was.) While this isn't turn-based, the graphics and music are spot on.
A recipe for awesomeness: dragon jousting, goo-covered battlefields, and my enemies dead before me!
To be honest, the best thing about this game is not the game . . . it's the manual!
Whoa . . . this is an AD&D Computer Product?
I mean, yes, you can fly around, home in on a dragon, and either joust its rider or blast it with a breath weapon in several different polygonal pixelated environments, but let's talk about this MANUAL! Look at this beautiful gem of information . . . a schematic on how a dragon lance is put together and attaches to a dragon saddle? What?!
So that's how it all works . . . huh . . . it's all right there . . . in the manual . . .
I mean, there's a 3-page story, the jousting schematic, controls, orders and ranks for dragon jousters, a description of each area of the map, stat sheets for each type of dragon, and a printable keyboard command layout. Could you imagine being the writer for this manual? That's a pretty sweet gig.
"Argent is small for his 723 years of age."
The game itself is a hard-to-play piece of ancient trash, BUT THIS MANUAL IS GOLD! I say it's 3 bucks well spent!
If you ever wondered how the progression of Dragon Jousters work, there you go.
That's more lore and goodness than you can shake a D20 at! The funny thing is, if you ever lost the manual to this game, you were screwed because to play the game, it actually asks you to type words from the manual to verify you bought the game. The manual and the game are tied together by a virtual serial cable that could never be severed! As the execs at Westwood surely once said, "Ain't no kid gonna just copy this game to a floppy and share it with his friends! He's gotta go through Kinkos as well!"
Closing in on my next dragon jousting target!
I was only ever able to get to the 4th mission in the game. I'm sure if I was 14 and had a full day to kill I could get a little higher in the ranks of The Knights of the Rose, but I hear BG3 calling to me.
DragonStrike is a great blast from the past, and if anyone wants to build me that dragon-jousting VR game of my dreams, there's a manual for that!
So, I've been thinking about pulling all my archives under one roof. This roof specifically being The Friendly Necromancer blog . . . But I'm not sure. What do you, my readers, think?
For context, I have several other blogs that are out there collecting dust that I'm not sure what I should do with them. Specially these:
... or maybe I do nothing at all. Which is what I've been choosing to do for the past decade.
The benefit of pulling these all over is that I can search them up on this blog at any time. If I ever made a book out of my top posts, they'd possibly be included. It would add weight to those early years of blogging to show just how much writing I did back then.
Some detriments include breaking up the flow of all those Wizard101 posts back in the day. There's also some maintenence of old posts that would need to be done. And, well, it's easier to just do nothing.
I don't know. I guess that's why I'm asking for advice.
I suppose I could also just link more directly to those old blogs on a sidebar? Or maybe I make a blogpost about each one of my old blogs and link list / summarize the greatest hits?
So, I don’t think I’m exactly winning any popularity contests in the blogging world these days. I mean, back in my quote-unquote heyday circa 2011 when I was a Wizard101 official fansite and scored a job off my blog, yeah, that was life-changing, to say the least. Let's just say that here in 2024, well, things have changed, or have they?
To be honest, I don't even know if I was notable in the blogosphere even back then! It's not like I was ever overwhelmingly popular with the general gaming crowd or anything. I was niche, and I certainly wasn't winning accolades for my writing. In that regard, I guess I've always been a bit of an outsider. Anyway, in the name of introspection and Blaugust (it is Lessons Learned week), let's take a look at where I'm sitting these days.
I guess this is where I'm sitting these days?
First off, I haven’t really been able to dive into the whole blogging community thing with many other bloggers. Sorry! I’ve tried to keep up on the Blaugust Discord and read more posts from others, but let’s be real—life happened, and I just haven’t made it a top priority. Not participating means, no tit-for-tat commenting. It means, not being part of the larger discourse. Instead, I'm over here talking about Spongebob in Brawl Stars on a Blogspot blog instead of Wordpress site (I don't think I'm winning accolades for my content choices or blog design either.)
Secondly, I used to be all about MMOs back in the day. Why, finding myself noted on the Global Chat Community Roundup for Massively OP was fuel for my soul! Now? Well, it'd be food for my soul, but I don't even have the time to log in to an MMO, let alone write about them. Truth, I almost logged into DCUO the other day just to snag my 50th anniversary D&D gift, but… meh. (Side note: Man, I really should log into DCUO for my free D&D gift!!!)
Thirdly, let’s not forget my hot takes, which are about as mild as they come. When I joined KingsIsle, I got a friendly reminder from my boss at the time to not go too wild on my personal blog, so my posts ended up being more like gaming journals than anything else. Uh, I don't think I've had a hot take in years. I don't even think I'm UP to the drama of a hot take. Probably the only reason my blog hasn't died is that I've been dragging it along like a ball and chain for the past decade or so. (Wait, was that a hot take?)
Finally, I’ve been deep into VR, which seems to be as out of place as using a typewriter for coding here among the other Blaugustians. And not only have I been deep in VR, but I've been deep in weird VR . . . match-3 VR even. You haven't read the things I've seen, but that’s okay. I’m here, still diving into Blaugust, and having fun along the way. (mmm . . . diving . . .)
Of course, it’s not just about recognition and accolades and all that. Has it ever been? Nay, I say. It’s about finding satisfaction in what I do and keeping that ball and chain tightly locked to my left leg, right? (or is it my right leg, left?) I'm my own special kind of weird, and I'm guessing since you made it this far down into the blog post, you fit in that category as well! So, raise your water bottles from Walmart, I guess here’s to sticking with what we enjoy and making the most of the journey, even if the spotlight is broken?
Uhhh ... look, I don't even know if I know my own true intentions and motivations with all this blogging. Maybe it's just boredom? Maybe it's tradition? Maybe it's the fact that my TikToks rack up even less views than my blog does?
Why do I even keep this tagline at the end of my posts?
Happy dueling?
(I'm sure I'll figure it out -- yeah, I'm still the Friendly Necromancer. Even after all these years. How's that for a hot take? Maybe I should bring back my Pet of the Day series . . . the thrill is real!)
Several months ago I started writing about some examples of enemy designs I had done back when I was still actively looking for a Design job. I never finished this breakdown, but since I'm low on content for Blaugust, I figured I'd go ahead and publish what I've done so far and count it as a free post for the day! Easy!
At some point I'll probably revisit this post and finish it up with pictures and more examples from FFA and possibly Gloom Busters. For now, I hope you enjoy reading about a few enemies I had a hand in designing.
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Battle Bows Enemy Designs
Battle Bows is a cooperative VR Archery Tower Defense game where you protect your castle from invading balloon enemies.
I designed the Battle Bows enemies to come in three styles:
Basic -- Always defeated in one shot and not immune to any damage from powers
Advanced -- Mostly still defeated in one shot and have various features that make them harder than basic enemies
Boss -- Multi-hit enemies with a twist and always finding unique ways to indicate damage states rather than using health bars
Details of each enemy design are below.
Basic Enemies
The main difference in how basic enemies behave is with their movement speeds and characteristics, for example:
The Cyclops is the slowest enemy with the most predictable movement.
The Speedster has a repeating jumping pattern and moves much faster.
The Ninja is the fastest of the three and has points programmed into its pathways to pause in place as if to appear they are hiding behind a tower, house, or tree.
Basic enemies are the meat of the game. You'll always find one of these three enemies on the board and while at first they're not a threat, eventually there is a sense of overwhelm that comes with them swarming in numbers.
Advanced enemies
One of my favorite aspects of this design is that most of these enemies give skilled players opportunities to kill them outright with a single shot, or they'll require a trick to defeat them, for example:
The Flier is a Cyclops mounted on a cloud. If you hit the enemy instead of the cloud, it is defeated. If you hit the cloud instead of the enemy, it tumbles to the ground and begins to path to the door. The flier can float over the wall and go straight for your heart, so you must deal with them quickly.
The Phantom can be defeated with one hit, but only when it stops to recast its invisibility spell, otherwise, it is invincible.
The Golem drags two bombs behind it. You have to destroy the bombs to blow up the golem. The golem can destroy themselves at the door or heart for a huge amount of damage, so while they move slowly, they are deadly if you ignore them.
The Necromancer has three shields that circle around it. If you can aim for its head, you will avoid the shields altogether. The necromancer is named such because it occasionally drops eggs onto the ground that hatch into one of the three basic enemy types. It also can throw a brain bolt at the player that will obscure their view if they don't dodge the projectile.
The Rocketeer raises on a platform from a point in the level, ignites their rocket, and shoots toward the heart. It is the fastest enemy in the game. You've got to hit the rocket, not the balloon, so, most times, this enemy will take two hits to defeat.
The Warlock is a slower enemy that likes to lurk along the edges at first and shield itself and other enemies. If an enemy has a shield, you have to pop the shield before you can defeat it.
These advanced enemies begin to be sprinkled in as you get further in the game. For example, you may find only one flier per tower at round 3, but by round 5 there could be as many as three fliers per tower. This not only gives you time to get used to how to defeat an enemy but allows for complexity to build over time.
Bosses
The bosses were by far the most fun and complex enemies to design.
Cubert is a single-hit boss that sits within a spinning six-sided shield that has three charges per side.
Snoozer has three eyes that require three hits each, but you have to use a power to wake Snoozer up before the eyes become vulnerable
Blinky has five eyes that require three hits each. The catch here is that eyes can regenerate back open if you don't take them down fast enough.
The Bomber King circles the outside of the castle alternating between throwing gunk at the player and making free throws on the heart with a bomb.
Every four rounds, a boss appears near the mid-point of the wave. At wave 20, players will begin to encounter two bosses every fourth wave.
Increasing Difficulty
We had to cap the number of enemies that could appear in a wave for Quest 2 optimization reasons, so mid-development we decided to add a move speed, base attack damage, delay timer for the first attack, and then a general attack delay for each enemy. As gameplay progresses through waves, these values adjust to make the enemies more difficult. This also allowed us to define a clear point in gameplay when damage values and speed from enemies would be so extreme we could do our best to avoid infinite gameplay, which would make network costs unpredictable.
FFA Hero Design Examples
Fantasy Fighter Arena (FFA) was a turn-based wrestling game that focused on collecting and leveling heroes. Ultimately the game was canceled in prototype, but it was the first time I was able to work with AI scripting to design how heroes would behave when controlled by the computer. In addition, building and balancing a "kit" for heroes was incredibly fun to do.
We began FFA in a paper prototype setting. As an example, one test character I built at the time was a zombie called "Dusty Erodes," who focused on damaging other heroes who attacked him.
As time went on, Dusty became a female fire elf who had the same kit, but different visuals that still made sense. Instead of being damaged by a contact poison, damage over time was caused by fire. We needed more female characters in the game and you definitely don't want to touch someone whose skin is made of fire!
About 3 weeks ago I sent a message to my high school buddy. We'll call him by his Internet Handle "Halfbite."
I just sent him that picture...
Now, Halfbite is amazing, first of all. He's one of those people that when you get around him, you are instantly energized, and it's like you're suddenly 17 again. Honestly, Halfbite is one of my most favorite people in the world.
So back in high school we used to play a couple of arcade games, Arknoid and Mortal Kombat. Both of those games were at a local grocery store and our lunch breaks were spent grabbing something to eat and spending a quarter or two on playing those two games.
Later in our 20's he would come over to my apartment and we'd play a bunch of Mortal Kombat 2 on the Nintendo 64 together. We, of course, did a lot of other fun stuff that deserves a whole blog post of its own . . . probably a whole book to be honest . . . but for the purposes of this blog post, just know that we loved playing Mortal Kombat together. "Fight you for a Friendship" was one of our things we just used to say to each other. (Referring to the Friendship Fatalities in Mortal Kombat II)
I take being ID'd to buy MK11 as a compliment
Now that I'm back in Utah, it means I can do things like text him and tell him to come over to once again play, you guessed it, Mortal Kombat. In fact, just this Sunday we were reunited in Mortal Kombat.
I didn't want to spend full price to pick up the newest Mortal Kombat, but I definitely sprung for a used copy of MK 11.
It was pretty great. Mind you, we paused and just talked about stuff for about half of the time he was there, but I was super happy just to get 4 or 5 matches in with him. As per normal, we were evenly split in victories over each other. We both were basically just smashing buttons trying to find the special moves, and I don't think either of us ever pulled off a finishing move.
Scorpion vs Subzero, a classic match up
I couldn't have been happier.
Last night I again put MK11 on the Switch and played a bit just for fun. My wife and oldest were watching and we ended up going through the fatality tutorials and started rating them to our own personal tier list. Ridiculously bloody and goofy fatalities are exactly what you expect from Mortal Kombat, and that is exactly what we got.
Raiden about to fry some undead
There were just too many to rank and we gave up halfway through. As I'm typing this, I can't even think of who all we gave an S-tier to, but I remember Sonya and Baraka ranked pretty high. Sonya's fatality involved kicking and shooting a person up into some helicopter blades and Baraka peeled off a face, sliced open the brain, and then grabbed it like a shishkabob on his claw and snacked on it. Yeah, that's mortal kombat for you.
Anyway, I don't play many M-rated games, but this is an exception. I hope I get to play more MK11 with Halfbite. It's one of the lost joys from younger years.
Well there it is ... I didn't really know if the rumors were true or not, but Supercell just pulled off a Spongbob collaboration.
Bikini Bottom at its Brawliest
I was so positive Clancy would be wearing the Spongebob skin, but nope, they gave it to El Primo. That actually does make more sense since so many more people would have access to El Primo whereas Clancy is a bit harder to get.
The finer things in life always cost money
The exclusive Brawl Pass skin for the season of Spongebob will be Mortis Squidward! I'm not very good at playing Mortis nor the clarinet. :(
The other characters will be Patrick Buzz, Sandy Jessie (with Gary Turret), Mr. Krabs Tick, and Plankton Daryl.
New power ups are going to be active and changing gameplay Sept 5th to October 7th -- all Spongebob themed. You'll also get a couple new game modes as well, including a Jellyfish collecting game and a new 12-person Trio showdown.
Honestly, it all sounds pretty great, and you can get all the details from their recent video.
That also mentions a couple new Brawlers and an upcoming Halloween event by the way...
Man, I can't even imagine how fun it must be to work on this game and with a Marketing Team that can pull off a collaboration like this. It's also great to see that this game is technically successful enough STILL to be having events like this. Even if Spongebob isn't your cup of kelp juice, you've gotta be impressed by at least that.
